According to Israeli peace activists Yehudith Harel and Yaakov Manor, it is extremely unlikely that the withdrawal from Gaza will lead to a future withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Harel and Manor state the real motives:

1) To improve Israeli positions and shorten the border, i.e., a tactical military redeployment.

2) To weaken international pressure, and to obtain an international green light for the perpetuation of Israeli control of the settlements blocs, and the lands which are on western side of the West Bank wall.

3) To strengthen among the Israeli public the idea that there is “no partner for peace.”

4) To make a joke of the Palestinian Authority’s institutions.

5) To create a trauma among the Israeli public, by pretending that the redeployment from Gaza is the maximum of compromise possible with the Palestinians, and that any additional compromise will provoke a terrible civil war.

6) To continue the construction of the wall and settlements in the West Bank.

These are clearly stated objectives of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Israeli National Unity Government. Ariel Sharon was the general under whose watch occurred the massacre of hundreds of civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps during the war against Lebanon in the 1980s; a man who just this past December stated in a speech that Israeli settlers must “take the hills, and then the rest,” is not a man who desires peace with the Palestinians.